Energy loss of heavy ions in gases: a comparative study

A comparative study of various energy loss formulations has been made using the calculated stopping power values and the corresponding experimental va lues for projectile ions with 8 less than or equal to Z less than or equal to 92 in 11 gaseous media: the five monatomic rare gases (He to Xe), two di atomic gases (H-2, N-2) and four polyatomic compounds (CH4, C4H10, CO2 and CF4), in an energy range of similar to 1-80 MeV/n. The merits and demerits of the adopted formulations are highlighted. It has been observed that the calculations based on SRIM-2000.38 recently developed by Ziegler provides b est agreement with the experimental results for projectile ions with 8 less than or equal to Z less than or equal to 47 in all these absorbers except the HZ gas absorber. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.